Friday 28 November 2008

AI 158 Is it the time to bring the jobs back home?


The world is under going seismic changes and the only thing for sure is that things will be very different moving forward.

The latest tragedy in India of terrorists targeting USA and UK citizens is raising concerns about corporate dependency upon critical offshore services for national business.

At the same time both the USA and UK need to find new jobs fast. But, and it’s a big but, the credit liquidity crises is forcing corporates to cut costs by downsizing and outsourcing more business operations.

What will happen if these outsourced jobs go offshore?

There is no doubt that if the USA and UK continue to outsource services to offshore then their national socioeconomic implications could be disastrous.

Is there an alternative?

The USA and UK can do what they do best and that is use innovation to create new jobs fast.

Since offshoring took momentum there have been big strides in technology using artificial intelligence, virtual call centers and virtual working that when combined could well become more cost effective than offshoring. With sociopolitical pressures to create new jobs at home combined with new innovative technologies may be enough to move market sentiment to bring the jobs back home.

AI 157 Whyville introduces micro transactions and a new virtual pet service called WhyPets


Numedeon announced yesterday a change in the business model of its premiere property, Whyville.

"We've had a subscription system for two years. We've consolidated that into a new system we call Pearls," explained CEO Jim Bower.
"The obvious reason to do this is that we think that the economic viability of virtual worlds, you need to have multiple different ways to get income. We are and remain primarily sponsorship and advertising based. In addition, having income that derives from the site itself remains a more stable and predictable source of income. "

As with everything in Whyville, stresses Bower, there's also an educational component.

The system is built on micro transactions and virtual goods to replace the traditional subscription model, but it bears elements of subscriptions on its own.
That interest in supporting a favored product may be part of it, but Whyville is also making the Pearls attractive with new, exclusive features. The Pearls announcement dovetailed with the launch of WhyPets, which let users buy, care for, and train pets in the virtual world. Eventually users will be able to gift, win, and earn WhyPets in various ways, but for now they're limited to Pearl purchases.
The company says that while other kids worlds have offered pets before, WhyPets are unique in the way that they learn and react to the way they're treated and trained.


"There is a sort of AI base to it. They both sort of respond to kindness from their owners and others. They have a range of behavior from friendly to a little unfriendly. They don't bite, but they can be more or less cooperative based on the kindness they receive and whether they're fed regularly and things like that," said Bower. "We're about to launch tomorrow a feature for pets where they will be able to sniff out and dig hidden treasure on the site, Clams or projectiles or other sorts of items that you can send your pets out to root around and find. That's something the pet is more willing to do if you have a better relationship with your pet."

The focus on micro transactions, new items, and pets that acquire even more virtual goods seems like a strong emphasis on collecting and managing properties in the virtual world. Bower says that the acquisition of items and aggregation of resources is a motivator for anyone, especially kids, and that it's paying off in Whyville.
"Whyville has very high engagement numbers—the highest in kids virtual worlds according to Comscore.

The average login last month was 34 minutes," he said. "Anything that motivates them to be on the site is a fcator, and having them come on and spend time to train their pets builds stickiness. It's a factor for engagement, that's what we specialize in. It's anecdotal at this point, but I think it's having that effect."

AI 156 Robot soldiers aim to become more ethical than human soldiers but they also need to engage in conversation


Military robots soldiers already are being used for sentry duty and performing dangerous work like detecting mines. But these are controlled by humans. To make them autonomous requires the military to tackle ethical issues. This is now being actively researched:

“My research hypothesis is that intelligent robots can behave more ethically in the battlefield than humans currently can,” said Ronald C. Arkin, a computer scientist at Georgia Tech, who is designing software for battlefield robots under contract with the Army. “That’s the case I make.”

Now all we need is for these robot soldiers that act as say security guards to be able to talk – best call me and I show you how!!

Thursday 27 November 2008

AI 155 Adobe Flash boosted for 3d web as FreeSpin3D solution turns the web into a 3D environment


The 3d web received a boost today.

Powered by FreeSpin3DTM, the First Solution to Enable Importing and Real Time Rendering of 3D in Adobe® Flash®, is Released by Revolver.

The FreeSpin3D solution turns the web into a 3D environment, enabling any flash designer and developer to easily import and use 3D models in 2D Flash movies
Herzliya, Israel - November 17, 2008 (INB) -- Revolver, a leading provider of 3D content development solutions for the graphic design and game development industries, announced today the release of its patent pending product, FreeSpin3DTM.
FreeSpin3DTM is the first commercial solution for importing and real-time rendering of 3D Models into Adobe® Flash®.


The FreeSpin3DTM (Beta version) was successfully implemented by more than 10,000 flash developers and designers around the world. The solution is available at the company website, www.FreeSpin3D.com.

FreeSpin3DTM is the first software that makes 3D development simple, fast, and effective, enabling all Flash designers and developers to create real time 3D content. With FreeSpin3DTM, designers and developers can add dynamic 3D graphics to their 2D environment-based online games, animations, advertisements, web design, entertainment and interactive content.

Until now, developers looking to add 3D elements to their Flash movies were forced to use prerendered elements to import their 3D content into Flash. This time-consuming process requires a fully rendered frame-by-frame rendition, increasing file size and reducing interactivity. FreeSpin3DTM is the first program to cut out this lengthy process by enabling the display and management of 3D objects directly within the Adobe Flash work space, using the FreeSpin3DTM Action Script interface. Once the developer imports 3D models into FreeSpin3DTM, it manipulates and compiles them into a data structure suitable for 3D object rendering in Adobe® Flash. This overall process strengthens the interaction between the user, the developer and the 3D object, creating simple and powerful 3D in Flash.

The FreeSpin3DTM bundle, priced at $299 per license, includes the FreeSpin3DTM import engine, the FreeSpin3DTM development environment, and one year of updates. Some of the main FreeSpin3D features are:

• Auto 3D tweening

• Live 3D preview on the Flash stage

• Z depth sorting

• 3D Physics/behaviors

• Access to 3D ActionScript API

• Flash Timeline support

• Optimized for commercial use and distribution in terms of CPU, RAM, and file size efficiency


"We view that the release of FreeSpin3DTM will present a real opportunity to more than 2 million Flash developers and designers that are looking for new creative & revenue streams of quality 3Dcontent within their Adobe Flash productions. FreeSpin3DTM is Adobe® Flash® with near-native 3D support, it is literally 3D in a FlashTM!" says Amir Fischer, CEO of Revolver.

Sunday 23 November 2008

AI 154 Google withdraws from the 3d web as Lively fails


This is the official quote from Google:

“In July we launched Lively in Google Labs because we wanted users to be able to interact with their friends and express themselves online in new ways. Google has always been supportive of this kind of experimentation because we believe it's the best way to create groundbreaking products that make a difference to people's lives. But we've also always accepted that when you take these kinds of risks not every bet is going to pay off.

That's why, despite all the virtual high fives and creative rooms everyone has enjoyed in the last four and a half months, we've decided to shut Lively down at the end of the year. It has been a tough decision, but we want to ensure that we prioritize our resources and focus more on our core search, ads and apps business. Lively.com will be discontinued at the end of December, and everyone who has worked on the project will then move on to other teams.

We'd encourage all Lively users to capture your hard work by taking videos and screenshots of your rooms.”

Further references about Lively can be found at AI 16, 50, 70, 75 81 and 119.

Saturday 22 November 2008

AI 153 Linden Lab’s accelerate investment for the 3d web



An excellent interview by Dusan Writer’s Metaverse Blog with Mark Kingdon, Chief Executive of Linden Lab http://dusanwriter.com/index.php/2008/11/21/interview-mark-kingdon-second-life-linden-lab/ provides the material for the following:

3D web is a high barrier to entry for 2d web competitors as it works so differently on many dimensions as it is far more than just technology it’s a different way of thinking.

The priority for future investment is focused on key customer sectors
• the consumer market (80% of the investment with links to the other sectors)
• the enterprise market (which includes government)
• the education market

New hires are experts in the consumer or content market and include
• Chief Product Officer, T Linden (Tom Hale) comes from Adobe/Macromedia. Arguably Macromedia is one of the most important enablers of creativity on the web with Flash, Photoshop and their other content creation and delivery tools. Tom is going to lead us in wonderful new directions there that all converge on the consumer market.
• SVP of Global Technology, FJ Linden (Frank Ambrose) comes from AOL where he helped the company scale for a huge market.

Linden Lab measures everything and have real-time/near real time charts for anything you can imagine. They monitor the drivers of active user growth, look at every stage in the user life cycle from cradle to grave so to speak – from web traffic to registrations to activations to an hour in-world to retention at 3, 6, 9, 12 months. They also looks at different types of users and their activity level — people who come to explore, people who come to create, people who come to run a business.

Companies were emphatic that Linden Lab have a behind the firewall solution so we are creating one. It’s in Alpha now and will be in Beta in the first part of next year. Alpha is filled up and beta is nearly so but if people are interested they should contact Chris Collins — ChrisC@LindenLab.com.

Tuesday 18 November 2008

AI 152: Procter and Gamble uses virtualization with major retailers to test product changes


“Virtualization is a huge area for Procter and Gamble, and we mix the virtual and real worlds a lot. For example, designing a new Hugo Boss perfume bottle uses a fraction of the cost of making physical mock-ups. We also use fully immersive 3D environments such as Caves (computer-augmented virtual environments) to demonstrate ideas to our big customers. “So whereas before we would have to convince Tesco to actually change a store layout to test an idea, we can now create it virtually and walk them round it.”

Meri Williams, information decision solutions manager, Procter and Gamble

Monday 17 November 2008

AI 151 P&G pioneer simulation and virtualization to cut costs and accelerate innovation for 80% of their initiatives


Source: WWD Beauty; Author: Molly Prior

The Procter & Gamble Co. aims to increase its physical presence with a dedicated push toward virtualization.

In its ongoing quest to cut costs and accelerate innovation, the consumer products giant has been using virtualization, computer modelling and simulation to more efficiently create products, complete with consumer input, and bring them to market faster. P&G began implementing virtualization capabilities in 2002, and is currently using them in roughly 80 percent of its initiatives, said Scott Hagen; P&G’s virtual solutions service manager.

In the company’s 2008 annual report, chairman and chief executive officer A.G. Lafley stated,

“Virtualization is enabling P&G brands to codesign products with consumers. The same technologies allow us to show retailers virtual in-store displays for half the cost and less than half the time required for physical shelf designs. Computer modelling and simulation saved P&G about 17 years of design time in the last year alone.”

The technology, first deployed to P&G’s research and development arm, is used for product formulation, consumer testing and in-store merchandising.

To make a shampoo, for instance, Hagen noted virtualization technology is used to speed the formulation and the chemistry during the R&D process, and later to develop the bottle and its graphics. All the while, the steps incorporate consumer feedback, which is funnelled into the process.

“Virtualization allows P&G more opportunities to expose consumers to stages of development,” said Hagen. “We have the methodology to determine if our new package resonates with consumers. We don’t have to wait to build one or two physical prototypes.” He acknowledged there may come a point during the consumer testing process when the participant wants to pick up the shampoo bottle, flip up the cap and smell the product, but leading up to that point P&G is able to have an ongoing, back-and-forth conversation with consumers about their likes and dislikes.

Referring to the merits of virtualization processes, Hagen said, “It’s really faster, better and cheaper. Cheaper is the less important part of that mantra.” He added the tools help P&G more efficiently drill down to what “wows” the consumer.

The company noted that in hair care, virtual tools have been key to cutting development time for redesigned packages by nearly 50 percent. Several years ago, P&G’s hair care business created 3-D package designs for the restaging of the Herbal Essences and Aussie Brands. The result, said P&G, was packaging that better reflects consumer needs. For instance, the firm restaged the Herbal Essences range with jelly bean colored, curved bottles that fit more snuggly in consumers hands and in their showers.

P&G is also taking its technology on the road to retailers.

Using mobile devices, the company can virtually show retailers how to best display a category, reconfigure an aisle or reinvent the store, said Hagen, adding that P&G can also share consumer feedback on a number of displays.

“Virtualization allows P&G to present [retailers] three times as many options as before,” he said, referring to manually setting up displays. He would not comment on what kind of sales gains retailers have seen when they implement virtually generated planograms, but said, “Retailers definitely see a sales lift.”

Media maybe fragmented, said Hagen, “But one place we know where we can find her is in the store.”

AI 150: over 5,000 educators now in Second Life as vlearning start to fertilise new ideas for education


The Second Life virtual world is already home to about 5,000 educators, according to Linden Labs, which runs it.

In Second Life avatars lecturers teach, and student avatars practice their skills, for course credits.

V-learning heralds a new way for people to learn more complex matter in shorter timeframes.

AI 140 British Android ‘Jules’ Mimics Facial Expressions with human like qualities


Scientists at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL) have devised the first android robot that can perform the precise lip movements and facial expressions of human beings.

Named ‘Jules’, the robot can automatically copy human movements by capturing them with its video camera ‘eyes’ and mapping them onto small electronic motors in its skin.

The process allows Jules’ disembodied androgynous robotic head to grin and grimace, furrow its brow and 'speak'.

Jules mimics these expressions by converting the video images into digital commands, which allow the robot's servos and motors to produce copies of these movements in real time. Indeed, the robot can interpret commands at 25 frames per second.

Robotics engineers Chris Melhuish, Neill Campbell and Peter Jaeckel worked three-and-a-half years developing the groundbreaking software that allows the interaction between humans and artificial intelligence. Jules has 34 internal motors covered with flexible rubber ('Frubber') skin, which was commissioned from U.S. roboticist David Hanson for the project.

The quality of the androids is getting better and better as they become more human like, such as:

• Repliee R-1 (refer to AI 101)

• Intelligent female" android from Tokyo’s robotdreams.com (refer to AI 99)

Friday 14 November 2008

AI 139 Federation of American Scientists use wiki as open knowledge system about virtual worlds


Source: Author: Monica Amarelo, Federation of American Scientists
The Federation of American Scientists unveiled an ambitious infrastructure for cataloging virtual environments called the Virtual Worlds Almanac. This wiki classifies virtual worlds and includes extensive links to tools, news, and other useful online reference materials.

There is great potential for virtual worlds to facilitate the development and testing of powerful new learning technologies. A virtual world is a computer-based simulated environment. Users inhabit and interact via avatars, or computer-generated characters.
“People worldwide can edit and contribute to this comprehensive guide to virtual worlds,” said Henry Kelly, President of the Federation of American Scientists. "We hope this wiki will make it easier for the community to collaborate and to keep abreast of innovations and new product offerings. FAS is interested in the potential virtual worlds offer for educational and learning."

The FAS Learning Technologies Program built the Virtual Worlds Almanac as a one-stop guide for information on the structure and capabilities of these sites. The wiki includes the engines used to create these simulated environments and related information like news, reviews and other links.

“Many features of the FAS Virtual Worlds Almanac enable visitors to learn more about virtual worlds. The ‘feature finder’ permits users to browse through each world based on their interests,” said Bruce Milligan, FAS Learning Technologies Project Manager. “Users can narrow their searches by filtering through more than 30 variables like purpose, platform, language, and year released.”

Virtual world developers, academics and the general public who use the listed worlds are encouraged to review, modify, and contribute to the wiki. FAS invites all users to create new listings for virtual worlds not already included. A template simplifies the process of adding and revising information. There are also forms to upload screenshots, news articles, external links, and more.

Most of the data in the Virtual Worlds Almanac is entered via checkboxes, drop-down lists, and specific textboxes, and supported variables include those related to use, technical features, communication, and demographics. All the information added by visitors will contribute to the serious research that will benefit all who have an interest in the Internet and its educational potential.

“The system used to create the virtual worlds feature finder is infinitely expandable,” said Michelle Lucey-Roper, director of the FAS Learning Technologies Program. “Anyone can edit and contribute to the Virtual Worlds Almanac. In fact, one of our primary intentions is the collaborative growth of the wiki.”

Further information can be obtained from http://vworld.fas.org/wiki/Main_Page

Thursday 13 November 2008

AI 138: Facebook starts to attract 3D games with SceneCaster and Millions of Us launching The Quest for Eternal Life


SceneCaster and Millions of Us (refer to AI 35) have launched of a new Facebook game, The Quest for Eternal Life.

"SceneCaster already enjoys an active user community that is creating and sharing immersive 3D scenes on the Web and on social networks such as Facebook," Mark Zohar, CEO, SceneCaster, said in a statement.

"The 'Quest for Eternal Life' is the first casual game developed off the SceneCaster platform. Working closely with Millions of Us we believe we have created a fun, engaging and challenging game that showcases SceneCaster's unique 3D capabilities, brings users plenty of spooky fun through Halloween and beyond and offers brands and advertisers an extremely engaging and effective sponsorship and in-game advertising platform."

Wednesday 12 November 2008

AI 137: digital dialogue being used by Cigna to address the consumer knowledge gap in the healthcare and insurance market


This is an article by by STUART ELLIOTT from the New York Times that shows how 3d web is being used for education in the health insurance market.

This campaign from a giant insurance company seeks to school consumers on health care by offering them a chance to attend a virtual institution of higher learning with no campus, sports teams, classrooms or fight song.

Best of all, there will never be letters from the alumni office dunning graduates for donations.

The insurance company is Cigna, which has introduced Cigna University with an interactive “e-learning” curriculum. The program is part of a brand campaign that carries the theme “It’s time to feel better,” which provides the address for the educational Web site.

“We can’t fix the entire health system overnight,” say newspaper and magazine ads that are meant to help drive traffic to the Web site. “But we’re doing everything in our power to make it better for you.”

The curriculum on the Web site is also available on Facebook, flickr.com and YouTube and as podcasts on iTunes. It is composed of three courses: “Back to the Basics,” the equivalent of Health Insurance 101; “What’s Your Plan,” outlining the ins and outs of health care plans; and “Take Action Now,” examining the health care platforms of the Democratic and Republican Parties.

And since few universities are all work and no play, visitors to the Web site can try their luck at a game about issues related to health. As an incentive to play, Cigna is making donations to an organization called Water for People for each three questions that computer users answer correctly.

The brand campaign includes, in addition to the print ads, three television commercials, one of them 60 seconds long.

The shops collaborating on Cigna University are Doremus, an advertising agency owned by the Omnicom Group, and an Omnicom public relations agency, Fleishman-Hillard, along with the Fleishman-Hillard digital health care practice.

The budget to develop the online health courses and the game is estimated at $400,000. The “It’s time to feel better” campaign, which Cigna intends to run for several years, has a multimillion-dollar budget.

“One of our main objectives is for consumers to be empowered,” says Sheila McCormick, director for consumer education at the Chicago office of Cigna, adding that company executives “recognize it’s difficult for people to act if they don’t understand” how the health care system — and health insurance — work.

Research shows that “only 8 percent say they understand all they need to know about health care,” she adds, which is “worse than we thought.”

Ms. McCormick acknowledges the widespread skepticism — even cynicism — about efforts to improve health care in the United States as well as the health insurance system.
“The industry is not perceived as positively by consumers as we would like,” Ms. McCormick says, and as a result “it’s very difficult to engage people.”

To counter that, the courses “are not branded Cigna and the Cigna logo is not all over them,” she adds, to underline that the initiative is “not to sell product but to educate people”

Howard Sherman, president of Doremus in New York, says a goal is to “stake out a leadership position” for Cigna, which is beginning to “think of itself as less of a health insurer and more of a health service company.”

“It’s more about that service mentality,” he says of Cigna University, assisting “members and employers to more easily navigate what’s a pretty complex system and get the benefits they need when they need them.”

One way to do that, Mr. Sherman says, is by “moving away from the jargon of health care,” so the courses are presented in as straightforward a fashion as was possible.
For instance, the educational programs are in a section of the Web site labeled “Its time to know stuff.” A demonstration of claim processing appears as “The life of a claim” in a virtual theatre.

“This is very much about a company that recognizes it’s in its own best interests to change,” Mr. Sherman says, “to make it easier for employer customers and member customers.”

Part of making it easier is the widespread presence of the courses in the new media outlets like Facebook, iTunes and YouTube.

“It was a great opportunity to try a host of things we’ve never utilized before,” says Karen Kocher, chief learning officer at Cigna, who is also based in Chicago.
“It recognizes the way learning tends to permeate,” she adds.

Erin Enke, a managing supervisor at the Fleishman-Hillard office in New York specializing in digital health care public relations, says the game was included in the curriculum because such content tends to be “more sticky” — that is, encouraging computer users to stay on Web sites longer.

“If you’re playing the game and enjoy it,” Ms. Enke says, “it automatically updates your Facebook page to show you’ve been playing.”

The presence of Cigna University on Facebook and the other Web sites is “not just because we can use them,” she adds, but rather to enable those consumers who consider visits to those sites as integral parts of their daily routines to “become familiar with Cigna.”

So far, the strategy seems to be working. As of last week, a month into the campaign, Cigna tracked 52,500 visits to the courses and the game, according to a spokeswoman for the company, Gloria Barone Rosanio, and 85 percent of the traffic to the Web site had come from Facebook and other “online referrals” that included blog posts and online articles.

And the donations to Water for People that Cigna is making for correct answers to game questions reached more than 52,300 as of last week, meaning that game players had answered more than 150,000 questions correctly. (The game informs players that for each three questions they get right, a child in a developing country gets a day of clean water.)

Cigna has agreed to donate $50,000 to Water for People through the end of the year, Ms. McCormick says.

Tuesday 11 November 2008

AI 136: unleash the future using bifurcation and trifurcation dialogue


This is an extract from a DDB Worldwide paper called ‘Unleash the Future’ written by Daan de Raaf.

The focus was on ‘The current environment. Chaos, complexity and theend of certainty”



The introduction of probabilities and statistics in natural sciences offers a solution for the problems of quantum physics and helps to understand dissipative, chaotic processes in nature. And it gives us back time in natural sciences.

We move from a science of laws and certainties, to a science of possibilities and opportunities.

Biebracher, Nicolis and Schuster in their address to the European Communities
(1995) phrase it beautifully:

“The maintenance of organisation in nature is not-and can not be-achieved by central management; order can only be maintained by self-organisation. Self-organizing systems
allow adaptation to the prevailing environment, i.e., they react to changes in the environment with a thermodynamic response which makes the systems extraordinarily flexible and robust against perturbations from outside conditions.

We want to point out the superiority of self-organizing systems over conventional human technology which carefully avoids complexity and hierarchically manages nearly all technical processes.”

Prigogine (1996) states that this notion has far reaching consequences and that the concept of bifurcations and self-organisation can help to understand innovation, renewal and diversification in other areas than physics and chemistry. This concept can as easily be applied to biology, sociology and economics.

When we enter the scope of human sciences, specifically marketing and organisational science, we know that this is in no way a static and predictable world. As stated earlier, the current business environment seems far from equilibrium and can be seen as dynamic open complex adaptive systems.

In this world we discover fluctuations, bifurcations and instabilities wherever we go, as is the case in nature.

End of extract

My comment

The work we have done with ai agents has been around the states of bifurcations and trifurcations – it is the latter that has an unbelievable impact upon everything. For example: a bifurcation could be ‘yes’ or ‘no’. A trifurcation perspective would add the third state of ‘not sure’.

Monday 10 November 2008

AI 135 Lifetime Entertainment acquires Roiworld.com so woman can have fun dressing up in the Virtual World


Lifetime Entertainment Services is a joint venture of Hearst Corp. and Disney. It’s Lifetime Networks, the pioneer of TV for women on cable networks, has announced today that it has acquired South Korean casual gaming startup Roiworld.com for an undisclosed price.

New York-based Lifetime will open a game development studio in Seoul to create more online games.

By early next year, Lifetime plans to have a U.S. version of the site with more than 1,000 casual games targeting females beginning early next year.

The games will focus on members dressing up avatars, or characters, in virtual clothing and social networking.

Andrea Wong, Lifetime chief executive, said that the Lifetime audience wants to have an escape from real life, whether on TV with the Lifetime channel or in the digital realm with something like Roiworld.

Kris Soumas, head of Lifetime Games, will oversee the entire games effort.

The game studio in South Korea will be run by Kiseo Kim, founder of Roiworld.com.

The deal is the latest connection between traditional media and the video game industry.

Roiworld has plenty of traction. It had 2.8 million monthly unique visitors in September and 117 million page views.

AI 134 Linden Lab’s sponsoring MIT Labs to develop X-Reality ideas to blur the boundaries between virtual worlds and real worlds


Paradiso, a professor in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, is working to create what he calls X-Reality (Cross Reality), a system designed to bring virtual and real worlds into a practical sort of alignment.

With funding from Second Life parent company, Linden Lab, Paradiso aims to use sensors, displays and software to bring real-world data into virtual worlds and to integrate access to virtual worlds with real-world situations.

Later in November, Paradiso's team of seven Ph.D. students plans to switch on 45 PDA-sized devices mounted on the walls of the Media Lab's building. Each is equipped with an iPhone-like touch screen, a version of Second Life's software, wireless connections, cameras and a variety of audio, motion and infrared sensors.

According to Paradiso's plan, anyone in the building wearing a small electronic badge can walk up to one of the small screens and peer into a landscape in Second Life and communicate with users.

Second Life users will likewise use the screens to look into the real world through floating windows in the virtual world, watching passersby or even remotely sitting in on meetings.

Friday 7 November 2008

AI 133 How fast will plastic surgery move towards cybernetic surgery? The USA military show glimpses of our future


The USA military could now be moving towards cyber surgery. This is a list of cyber surgery techniques that are being speculated about:

1. Growing back body parts, both internal organs and limbs

2. Regenerating body parts on "nano-scaffolding" - using molecular-sized particles that act as nano-scaffolding for the human cells to grow

3. Telepathy through electronic impulses in the scalp (intrusive?)

4. Erase bad memories (whose the judge)

5. Devices that will translate one soldier’s thoughts into electrical signals that can be beamed to other soldiers, to help in stealth operations

Other experiments are using real solders to create ghost effects on the battlefield –these techniques are being tested using virtual worlds.

AI 132 Sony to launch their virtual world service called Home in December 2008


Sony intends to use its Playstation 3 console to launch its Virtual World service and is yet another example, like Apple, that will be based on a Closed System (refer to AI 131)

Jack Buser, Sony's Director for PlayStation Home, says we'll soon see a rapid expansion after the launch.

"We'll launch within open beta. That means two things," Buser explained.

"It will be available to all PlayStation users at no cost. But there will obviously be a certain percentage of people who want to stand out from the crowd and customize their avatar with certain items or have a premium space and they will have that option within the PlayStation Mall, but it is not required.

Second, we are calling it an open beta for a specific reason. Home will always be evolving. You will be seeing new stuff, including new technology. The platform will always be evolving and living and breathing."


"It's important to realize the scope of PlayStation Home. When you look around, it's just the icing on the cake," Buser said.

"The cake is that it's a development platform for third parties to develop content on. We want Home to scale rapidly, and we figured the best way to do that is to get third parties involved. After launch, you're going to see Home grow rapidly with new media, new content, and new experiences, coming quite rapidly. That's absolutely been the demand from the users."

AI 132 Artificial Intelligence Agents in 3d-Web and Virtual Worlds will be Closed Systems that will change the dynamics of the web and mobile



AI Agents that have conversations with humans will become the must have for 3d-web and Virtual Worlds. As the search engines cannot penetrate the ai agent conversation this barrier will change the dynamics of mobile and the web. As more and more interaction with ai agents occurs the more it will change the dynamics of advertising spend.

Any new technology that can profoundly change advertising spend will change the dynamics of the market as we know it today.

A Closed System strategy has been best executed by Apple with its iPod and iPhone linked into a seamless service that remains invisible to search engine giants like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL.

But ai agents, like the technology from Decisionality, will enable everyone to build Closed Systems.

This change could happen faster than that most people realize.
ai agents that converse with humans will be the foundation for web 4.0 and web 5.0 (Please refer to AI 1) and their natural habitat of 3d websites, virtual worlds and mobile devices and will be underpinned by Cloud Computing (web 3.0).

Tuesday 4 November 2008

AI 131 Linden Lab to create a wonderful first one hour experience for those new to its Second Life virtual world


Linden Lab (refer to AI 116/115/77/20) announced today that it had hired the interactive design agency Big Spaceship "to dramatically simplify the sign-up stage, ease users’ introduction into Second Life, and quickly connect people to relevant content and experiences in Second Life."

AI 130 AI Agents are being used to Interview Candidates


The vendor, HRMC, markets a solution called Acclaim that uses human-controlled artificial intelligence to interview job applicants.

There are several issues with traditional interviewing that include:

- the poor quality questions interviewers use when evaluating candidates

- the expense and lost productive time spent interviewing

- the need to have a complete resume before an initial screening interview has occurred

The approach HRMC scripts the ideal (not average) job qualifications and creates explicit proof points that must be verified by applicants. Applicants can respond to job listings by taking a telephone-based interactive interview over the telephone. An IVR (interactive voice response system) system asks the candidate very relevant questions. Responses are captured for future playback with a recruiter.

What distinguishes this approach are the following characteristics:

- The software asks a qualifying question (e.g., “Have you ever had to fire a poor performer?”)

- If the candidate responds ‘yes’, the artificial intelligence behind the software follows up with one or more behavioral and insightful questions (e.g., “How did you handle this and what would you do differently today?”)

- If the candidate responds ‘no’, the software skips to another line of questioning. If the experience this question relates to is critical to the execution of the job, the interview could be materially shortened and the applicant moved down the scoring list for applicants.

- The very best candidates move to the top of the follow-up list for a face-to-face interview.

This solution is definitely an improvement over prior methods. Recruiters are substantially more efficient as they can play back dozens of candidate responses in the time they would normally spend interviewing just one candidate. Second, the lost time and expense that companies would incur to conduct face-to-face interviews is substantially reduced. This is a good thing in a tough economy. And, the quality of insight that a company gains about the candidates is materially improved.

AI 129 Competition for Talking Avatars Benefits from More Venture Capital Funding







Here are some of the movers and shakers for talking avatars.

Fix8 is a Los Angeles company that animates your expressions, letting you communicate over video live via a personalized avatar. It has just raised $3 million in a first round of venture backing. The funding comes from Vickers Financial Group, a Singapore-based private equity firm. Fix8 had partnered with the Shanghai Media Group to offer something called “AuditionsTV,” where audiences can submit fix8 content for insertion into live or taped programming. Fix8 says it will soon launch a mobile edition.

Gizmoz, an Israel-based company that lets you create 3D avatars, has raised $6.5 million in a second round of venture funding. DoCoMo Capital — a subsidiary of NTT DoCoMo, Japan’s largest cell phone operator — led the round, which Gizmoz plans to use for expansion in Asia. ngi capital and previous investors Benchmark Capital and Columbia Capital also participated. Gizmoz is also unveiling a new partnership with AOL, which will allow AOL Instant Messaging users to animate their chats with Gizmoz avatars. The company says it has already created animations to illustrate more than 50 trigger words that can be used in a chat, such as “blabla” and “brb”.


Big Stage Entertainment is a new generation digital media company enabling vivid personal projection in online activities. BigStage.com, currently in restricted beta, offers breakthrough technology allowing users to easily create and integrate a life-like 3-D avatar of themselves, called an @ctor, into everything from famous movie scenes, TV shows and video games, to music videos, short video clips, virtual worlds, still images, user-generated content, instant messages, e-mails, social networks and more – instantly. (Refer to AI 56). It has raised $2.9m funding.


Meez, is another site that lets you play around with customized avatars so that you can escape your real world and dabble in fantasy. It was launched by Sean Ryan, who previously ran the music site, Rhapsody. But Meez wants to let you take your avatar wherever you go, including eventually on cell-phones. It is owned by Donnerwood Media, of San Francisco, which has received $4.3 million in venture funding from Battery Ventures, Transcosmos Partners, Allen & Co. and other individual investors.


IMVU, is another company that lets you customize your avatar and go off and chat with people in virtual bars and coffeehouses. Ries, 28, co-founder of IMVU.com, an avatar-creation and instant-messaging service that's lined up more than $8 million in venture funding.


Union Square Ventures invested in Oddcast, which is a leading provider of flash based avatar services to the marketing community and small and medium businesses. Oddcast uses SitePal which is a speaking avatar platform to deploy "virtual employees" on websites that can welcome visitors, guide them around the site and answer questions.The use of SitePal on commercial websites has been controversial because may visitors report finding them annoying. Some research has shown that they can increase sales in comparison to using static photographs.

Monday 3 November 2008

AI 128 A very Dexterous Robotic Hand


The Shadow Dexterous Robotic Hand, is a very advanced robotic hand in the world and the only which has all twenty-four degrees of movement of the human hand.

Each robotic hand sells for around £100,000 and can be used "anywhere you need human dexterity, but can't put a human being".

Robitic hands can be applied in areas such as bomb disposal, the handling of hazardous.

Maybe this robotic hand should be connected to a robotic arm! (Please refer to AI 127)

AI 127 Small and long robotic arms find commercial applications



First a robotic hand (refer to AI 126) and now a robotic arm. This one comes from
OC Robotics and delivers 1/2" diameter snake-arm robot.

The arm is the smallest snake-arm robot to date and uncoils out of a briefcase-sized box where it is stowed.

The arm is 24" (610mm) in length, with longer arms under development, and was designed for the US Department of Defense who needed a way of inspecting and working inside confined or cluttered spaces - a capability not previously available.

Snake-arm robots are flexible robotic arms that don't have 'elbows', so they can 'follow their nose' into confined spaces.

Snake-arm robots are flexible and compliant, like endoscopes, but they are fully controllable like a robot and can be precisely positioned.

With a snake-arm robot the operator needs only to drive the tip of the arm around obstacles using a tip-mounted camera and the software will control the rest of the arm to follow where the tip has been.

AI 126 The Robotic FreeHand wins a Prestigious Award


FreeHand®, Prosurgics’ is the next generation robotic camera holder and has been selected by the Society of Laparoendoscopic Surgeons (SLS) as their Innovations of the Year, 2008.

The FreeHand laparoscopic camera holder is the first of Prosurgics’ new generation of affordable robotics, and is designed to bring the benefits of crystal-clear visualization and direct camera control within the reach of surgeons in every laparoscopic surgical unit.

BillPerry, President of Prosurgics’ newly formed US organisation, is delighted that the benefits of FreeHand have been recognised by the SLS:

“FreeHand is an important innovation because it has been designed to solve problems experienced by every laparoscopic surgeon, such as poor visualisation and variable levels of surgical procedure assistance. FreeHand’s numerous benefits and its affordability explain why we expect FreeHand to become an everyday necessity in operating rooms across the world in the coming year .”